The dolls are back in town.

We got some cute dolls to go with our dollhouse. Not fancy, but cute. But not princesses. The princesses have taken over the doll house.
Ainsley's favorite dolls are these rubber Disney princesses that we got when they went on clearance. Not what I pictured my daughter playing with a few years ago when visions of wooden, handmade, or cloth toys danced in my head - before my daughter's own desires got in the way. As of right now, the brand means nothing to her - just princesses.

The dolls we got her, they're polite. They're good tenants. They don't make a lot of noise. Family people.

The princesses are a whole 'nother story. They party. They look all sweet when they show up at the house - look at how proper they are -
but they party hard.

I walked in on a hot tub party once.

And Disney princesses party differently than us. Instead of lampshades on their heads, they have birds. You don't even want to know how drunk she was when I took this picture.

When I go to clean up, I find three of them crashed on the couches while the woodland creatures they invited are making a mess, crowding out my cute wooden family dolls.

Belle's in the shower - fully clothed. That must be a heck of a hangover. Unicorn juice'll do that to you.

Snow White's on the toilet - at least her head's not in it. Maybe she didn't party as hard as the others.

I was laughing about how at least these are Disney princesses, so there wouldn't be bras hanging from the chandelier. I'd forgotten that somebody invited Ariel.

It's really not surprising that Ains has to be doing repairs already.

This isn't the dollhouse play I pictured. It's better. As Steph says, it's nice starting the day with a free smile.

"Do you want to spend the night?"

It's always been a safe question to ask when we're at Aunt Ria's and she doesn't want to go home but we really need to. Even if she answers yes, she changes her mind when she realizes that that means she won't be with Mother when it gets dark.

So I felt pretty comfortable asking her "Do you want to spend the night?" when she didn't want to leave but we really needed to because there was ice cream in the trunk of the car. Then she said yes and meant it. Then my younger daughter was very sad because she couldn't spend the night also. She's probably more ready than the elder, but I was not about to leave Aunt Ria with two nieces while she has a young baby, and I told Ainsley that.

"That OK. I sleep with Emma." Problem solved, apparently. But it wasn't, and we had to leave.

I know you've never seen my Ains cry, so let me explain the process for you. She hates to cry and never uses it as a tool to sway you. When something is bad enough for her to cry - usually severely hurt feelings - her face becomes completely still. Then her eyes well up. Then her bottom lip comes out just a bit and starts to quiver violently as she fights with everything inside of her to hold it in. If she can't hold it in, her whole face will dissolve into the saddest cry you've heard and you will feel like you'll do anything to fix the situation. This is what happened as she was getting buckled into the car. She badly wanted to be with her Aunt Ria and Aunt Ria's princess dress-up clothes. "I old enough!" "I not ohvohwhem (overwhelm) Aunt Ria!" "If she get sick, I make her Mergen-C (Emergen-C) and she get bettuh. She *needs* me." Folks, the only thing that helped me drive away with her without giving in was the thought of my sister shooting me.** She really didn't need two extra kids today.

We were seven minutes down the road when the crying started getting softer and then petered out. All of a sudden a bright voice pipes up and says "Hannah not be at home? I pay wif Hannah's toys and she not be mad! I pay wif Nettie and ..." and she started listing off Hannah's toys that she would get to play with when she got home. Happy again. I put the kabosh on her playing with Hannah's special toys, but the dolls and the games and the books that are usually fodder for sibling sadness? Go for it.

We're not expecting Hannah to make it through the night - to be honest I'm surprised she even made it *to* the night - so she has our numbers on her aunt's phone and promises to call if she needs us to come get her.

Crossing my fingers it all goes well, for everybody's sake.

**About my sister - she wouldn't shoot me. She doesn't own a gun.

Free time.

Not for me, although that would be so nice during this busy season. Free time at the gym after gymnastics class. After class, you can pay a few bucks and your kids get to run around in the gym for an hour. This was the first time we took advantage of it, but first we had to get through class. Both classes were .... loopy. While the classes normally run very smoothly, today all of the kids in both classes were having a difficult time concentrating. If I didn't know better, I'd swear there had been a full moon last night. (Especially after the mouse fiasco earlier this morning.)

Exhibit A: Ainsley walking on the balance beam. Look at her body language. She's just strolling along there, chatting to the teacher.

It was actually a funny conversation. The teacher had asked another student who was wandering around in a daze if she was lost. Being three years old, Ains had to tell her that *she* wasn't lost, she'd come here with her mother and her mother knew how to drive, so she knew she wasn't lost, and she'd recognized the building as soon as we'd pulled in, and then when she came in, she'd recognized the teacher, so she *knew* she wasn't lost. Ad infinitum.

Hannah's class didn't fare much better, but she and her cousin got their synchronized balance beam walking down.

What I'm trying to say is, we *needed* that gym free time to get some energy out. An added bonus was that Gray got to be on the other side of the white fence today. No more watching his sisters get to play on the equipment without him while he had to be content throwing cars through the fence.

The block pit at the end of the long trampoline was a favorite, naturally.

Keeping an eye on three kids in a crowd of thirteen wasn't easy. Gray would be on one side of the gym while Ains would be on another.

Luckily, Hannah made it easy. She and her cousins stuck together like glue. Every time I turned around, they were together - always on a different piece of equipment, but together, which meant that my sister could keep an eye on Hannah while keeping an eye on her own kids.

There they are.
And there.
And there.
And there's Gray.
There they are again.
And again.
And there's Gray.
And Ains moving so fast you can barely see her.

And Gray again.
I don't know if I'll be able to keep him on the right side of the fence at our next class. Once you get a taste of the good life ... especially if it involves a trampoline and a crawl tunnel ...

Do you ever feel like you're being watched?

Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Tiny changes.

I always thought it would be the big, noticeable things with my kids that would mark the time passing for me. You know, birthdays, lost teeth, school starting.

It certainly is the big things that make me notice the time passing with my friends and family. She lost her tooth? Can you believe you have a seven year old? She's old enough to be in school already?

But with my children, the big things haven't fazed me yet. It's the little things that make me pause, startle, and sometimes tear up a little bit.

Like the moment a few months ago when I took Hannah to get some new shoes. There was a small selection and the only choices she had in the kind of shoe we were going for (fancy shoes) were sparkly Disney labeled shoes or sweet, grown-up ballet shoes. Now I really dislike branded clothing, but for half a second I caught myself hoping that she'd pick the glittery shoes and stay so young just a bit longer. She chose the ballet shoes. I was very happy about it, once the decision was made, but for me it marked the ending of a period in her life.

And there was the moment a few weeks ago when I realized that my three year old was running to the bathroom with her pants pulled up. Not something *you'd* notice if you were visiting, but for me, it was a big deal. See, I've been trying to convince her for six months that when she realizes that she needs to go to the bathroom so bad, it would be more efficient to run to the bathroom and *then* pull down her pants instead of immediately pulling them down to her ankles and running to the bathroom (at full speed, no less) like that.

Oh, and the moment yesterday when I was chasing my 18 month old around the house, tickling him and he was giggling that hysterical happy-baby-giggle so hard and I startled a big boy laugh out of him. He didn't understand why I stopped chasing him and it took me a second to understand it myself.

Changes that are small are the sweetest and most telling.

Sometimes they're not so sweet, though. I turned 32 this year and didn't even notice. Age is just a number and all that. I'm enjoying my thirties more than any other stage in my life. And then yesterday a kinda hot guy in his early twenties almost ran into me in the store. He said "Excuse me, ma'am." Did you get that? He said "Excuse me, ma'am." I think that at this point I should call him 'a nice young man' instead of 'a kinda hot guy.' *sigh*

It's the little things.

Conversations.

Hannah and I were fixing her hair when she looked at me in the mirror and said "Are we drawings? On a tv show?"

You mean like a cartoon? I asked her.

"Yeah."

So is everything we're saying to each other right now part of the cartoon?

Big eyes. "Yeah, I guess so."

So can we say what we want to or only what is written down? Can we decide what we want to do or is it all part of a cartoon?

"I don't know... .... I'll have to think about this." Big pause. "Do you think Homer and Marge know that they're just cartoons?"

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We were sitting down for lunch with soup and sandwiches when Ainsley decided to proclaim our family a super-hero team.

Pointing around the table, she said "Gay and Daddy and you and that girl" (pointing to Hannah) "are a Us Team."

Me: "What's the Us Team?"

A: "Supah-hewoes."

Me: "Really? What is your power?" Blank look. "You need a super skill if you're going to be a super hero. What are you going to do? Fly? Walk through walls? Leap buildings in a single bound?"

Ains: "I paint buildings in one bound. With my tummy."

Matt: "You can be the Belly Blaster. What's Gray? The Super Pooper?"

Hannah: "No, that's you Daddy."

Matt: "Then what are you?"

Hannah: "I don't know. What am I good at?"

Matt: "Your super power can be charm. We'll call you Charm Alarm."

Hannah: "What's charm?"

Ains: "I BEWWY BASTTER!" Aims with her tummy.

Hannah: "Dad, you can be Super Worker because you're good at working. And Mother, you can be Super Lover. You're good at loving us."

Me, looking at Matt: "Is that my power? Super Lover?"

Matt: "Yes. But a super-hero costume wouldn't hurt."

Dancing with the stars.

Dance shows are a big part of our lives these days - easily three shows in the evening every week. And three shows means hours and hours of practice, dress rehearsal, costume design ... you get the drift.

It's the highlight of my husband's day, watching these shows - and with good reason. They're hilarious.

The routines consist of the girls singing songs that they're making up on the spot while they dance. They can get very active ...

and very expressive.
I think in that picture Hannah was singing about planting, watering, and harvesting plants but not letting Colorado Potato beetles get them, after which she launched into a medley of ABBA songs. Her shows are usually about seven minutes (of non-stop flow-of-conciousness singing).

Then this one starts in.

She just likes having a captive audience.

On the night I took these pictures, I started timing her performance when I realized it had been going on awhile. Seventeen minutes later, she was still going.

Talk about flow-of-consciousness singing. We got to hear about her kitties, her dog, her brother, her baby dolls ... and fudge chocolate chip cookies. No idea where that came from which is probably why it made her dad laugh so hard when she threw it into her routine. And that made her giggle.

And after that, anytime she needed to liven things up, she'd randomly throw out 'fudge chockut chip cookie' and promptly dissolve into giggles.

Dancing with the stars in our own home.

Movin' right along.

Ainsley woke up yesterday, walked into the bathroom I was cleaning and said "Get eawings today."

I wasn't expecting this girl to want earrings until she was eight years old, so she caught me by surprise. "You want to get your ears pierced today?" I asked. "Yes."

"You're sure? It hurts a bit. A bit worse that this..." and I pinched her ear a bit. That's always stopped her in her tracks on the few other times she's thought about it. "Yes. Eawings today."

"We're going to town today, so we can do that if you want. It hurts though. More like this..." and I used my nail to pinch her ear a tiny bit harder. "OW!!!" She glared at me. "Get eawings today." So we went to the mall.

When we got to the store, I double(triple?)-checked with her and then handed her the box of starter earrings to choose from.

She chose the rainbow flowers.

She sat really still while the dots got marked on her ears.

And really still while the ladies pierced them.

And immediately after they were pierced, she covered both her ears with her chubby little hands and yelled "OWWWW!!!" I could see her fighting back tears, so I said "Do you have a mirror? Quick!" They had a mirror handy.

Then she went back to this.

Then the mirror, then the hands again.

Today we've washed and turned them and she says they don't hurt. It completely changes the look of her.

At least to me.

Pie-uts, Katrina Daisy Petal, and an owl.

Danni asked me if Ains had had any special birthday wishes. She had. A doll with pink hair is what she wanted. And something pirate (she is a self-proclaimed 'pie-ut girl').

We give our children four things for each birthday.

Something they want.
Something they need.
Something to wear.
Something to read.

The want was obvious.

I'd been working on a doll with red hair, but she was adamant about the pink, so I gave it pink hair instead. She wuvs her. Her name is Katrina Daisy Petal.

The need was also pretty obvious if you've been watching the pictures of her of late - a hat of her own.



I'm not totally happy with it, but she is and it's the first hat I've made, so I'm cutting myself some slack (even if I did cut the brim too short. Grrrr....)

Something to wear was a skirt. Easy, peasy (if you don't count all of the gathering, which I don't or I'd go crazy) and such a sunny skirt for the beginning of fall.

Katrina Daisy Petal got a matching skirt.

Something to read was When Stella Was Very Very Small which was bought a week before her birthday, back in the good ol' days when she was still proud of being 'wittle'.

Luckily, the book ends with Stella becoming a big girl ("Like me?!?!?" says she), so we're good.

Also, siblings give to siblings. Hannah gave her a blanket that she worked hard on making for Katrina Daisy Petal. Luckily it was almost as big of a hit as the doll.

She stayed up late with me the night before Ains' birthday sewing the buttons on the blanket. She was falling asleep while she was stitching when she cuddled up to me and said "It's fun loving someone so much that you'll make stuff for them, isn't it?" Yes it is.

About the pirate something. We decided on the cake.

Everything on it but the pirates, chopsticks and sails, and licorice is edible. Who eats licorice? (Besides my husband and mother.)

The sailboat carries the captain of the pirate ship - a Pirate Girl. The only pirate Ains won't let Gray play with.

Hannah made a kick-ass pirate flag.

Here are some other snapshots of our day.











(See the pirate walking the plank? You can't see the pirate standing behind him with a sword. Ains put him there "or the otha pie-ut not go on pank." My girl's a bit bloodthirsty methinks.)

Thank you for all of the lovely birthday wishes!